Version 3.0

25 September 2005 5:33 PM

It is taking me longer to learn some things. For example, the Latin American philosophy on when you should arrive somewhere. My professor explained that, if someone invites you to a 7:00pm dinner at their house, it is rude to arrive at 7:00pm. Arriving at 7:15pm or 7:30pm is more appropriate.

Another example: if you arrive at 10:45am for the 11:00am Mass, no matter where you sit, that woman is going to find you and ask you to read. Now, if you had the good sense God gave potatoes, you remember what happened last time and arrive at 11:15am or 11:30am like everyone else.

But let’s assume for the moment that I don’t have that good sense and the woman asked me to read again at Mass. This time, I was prepared. “You know, I can’t read very well. Are you really sure you want me to read?” She was sure.

I have to admit, though, it’s good practice. Though there are only 50 people in the church circa 11:00am, that number balloons to around 150 circa the-time-I-had-to-read. There’s a lot of positive pressure to get it right. Plus, Caitlin was again along for the ride and offered moral support. Who knows—maybe I’ll just stay dumb and keep arriving early.

Comments

Entry Navigation

About

Ryan does stuff and writes about it here. He studied philosophy at Notre Dame and worked afterwards with Holy Cross Associates in Chile. Some of his interests are technology, design, and photography. He was a student at UC Berkeley’s School of Information and currently works as an engineer at Slack.

Colophon

This site's valid markup was created using TextMate and the invaluable CSSEdit. Pages get served up after MovableType fills in the blanks. Various PHP scripts hold the ship together.